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Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

djmag.com

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Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#101

Post by rnestler »

rain_iwakura wrote: post #46

I think they should basically turn it into Twitch, where I can "sub" to an artist and maybe get their tracks earlier than others or some other additional content that costs artist $0 to produce for the most part (podcast, making of, e.g. a la Patreon). In addition, if you add "donate" button you'd see a lot of artists being showered with cash. It's a shame that these hacks (streamers) become multimillionaires while r…

> In addition, if you add "donate" button you'd see a lot of artists being showered with cash.

There are donation buttons for some artist on Spotify. I guess the artist need to enable it? ("Signum Regis" is an artist that has a Donate button for example)

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#102

Post by throwaway8414fr »

isodev wrote: post #87
kredd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure how it can affect those artists given it’s like $0.5 for 1k streams. I mean, I guess if they have 100 songs all at like 999 streams, that’s about $50 loss/year if they never pass that threshold. It sucks obviously, but not enough to for artists to pull out. My understanding is they’re playing a cat-and-mouse game with auto generated content, that syphons away some percentage of the royalties.

As a part-time indie artist, one can do a lot with $50 you get on the side from streams. Also, what is Spotify going to do with these 50$? What if it happens twice, 100$... do they pay you back eventually? Perpetually free access to all their premium services?

That wss an extreme example I think. Most probably end up with less than $5 loss

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#103

Post by junon »

vvillena wrote: post #64
snailmailman wrote: post #11

I don’t know much about how music licensing works. But would this cause smaller musicians to decide to pull their stuff off Spotify? I listen to a lot of music on Spotify. And some of it is from smaller indie artists. Not a huge amount, but I’ve definitely listened to songs that are in that It surprises me how much of my Spotify library is no longer available. There’s at least a few dozen songs in my Spotify library…

> There’s at least a few dozen songs in my Spotify library that have been taken off the platform. It shows up in the list greyed out. As infuriating as this is, it's the reason I still use Spotify. A music service that hides their catalog changes by subtly modifying my playlists is a no-go. Having the songs still appear lets me know, as it gives me the opportunity to find those songs elsewhere.

Yeah I have to admit, Spotify uses the least amount of cruddy dark patterns. Their model is very upfront about paying, so they have never nagged me for anything. Their interface isn't the best but it's consistent.

These days there's a lot of worth in that, the bars been set quite low.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#107

Post by ssl-3 »

djxfade wrote: post #73
ansc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that's because the label siphons the rest. Spotify pays $4 per 1000 streams.

Where do you get those numbers from? I'm a self published artist. I had 150k streams on Spotify last year. I only earned roughly $450. There's no label or other middleman here taking a cut. Spotify is just cheap.

They say: $4 / 1,000 = $0.004 per streamed track.

You say: $450 / 150,000 = $0.003 per streamed track.

The two sets of numbers don't seem so far apart that the discrepancy cannot be explained by rounding errors.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#108

Post by whstl »

silisili wrote: post #63
basisword wrote: post #39

This shouldn’t be legal. It’s a massive abuse of power. Small artists need to be on Spotify (pulling their music in protest is not viable and not going to lead to change anyway). What gives Spotify the right to arbitrarily decide “you make so little money it’s not worth our time paying you”? There’s no other business you could get away with this in. Scum.

It depends on the amount here, which I'm still not actually sure of. Lots of companies today only pay you out once you reach $X, usually some nominal amount. It sounds like that could be the case here. Why deal with payment processors, billing disputes, etc for a customer only earning pennies?

> Lots of companies today only pay you out once you reach $X, usually some nominal amount. It sounds like that could be the case here.

This seems to already be the case, in practice. Spotify claims that there's about 40 million in unpaid royalties for people who can't withdrawal yet.

https://artists.spotify.com/en/blog/modernizing-our-royalty-...

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#110

Post by runiq »

atoav wrote: post #54
snailmailman wrote: post #11

I don’t know much about how music licensing works. But would this cause smaller musicians to decide to pull their stuff off Spotify? I listen to a lot of music on Spotify. And some of it is from smaller indie artists. Not a huge amount, but I’ve definitely listened to songs that are in that It surprises me how much of my Spotify library is no longer available. There’s at least a few dozen songs in my Spotify library…

I am in a small and new band. In 2023 we earned roughly 500 Euros via Bandcamp (digital, physical and merch) 300 Euros selling merch on gigs 2000 Euros playing gigs 20 Cents on Spotify There is no monetary reason to be on spotify, the only reason we are on there is because fans asked.

I'm intrigued. What's your bandcamp page? :)
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